Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Happy Birthday to Julie!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012
10 comments

Happy birthday to the amazing gal we know as Julie Zickefoose! She is known the world over by a variety of names, and by her many wonderful works. Crazy Dog Lady is just one of the names she goes by—and proudly—since she has bonded with our Boston terrier Chet Baker about as strongly as the white is bonded to the rice.

She is the Science Chimp who leads the science club at Salem Liberty Elementary and gets young f0lks to tune into the amazing living things all around us.


She is the living embodiment of Scooby-doo's friend Velma, shown here with Daphne solving a mystery involving Old Man Wiggins.

She is called Mommy or Mom by a couple of the sweetest kids ever to wear dorky hats.


Crazy Bird Lady is another moniker. When this red-headed woodpecker showed up at our feeders last winter, Julie immediately hung a bird house up for it, held in place by bungee cords. The woodpecker, recognizing that this was the CBL, immediately moved in for a week-long stay.

She is rarely referred to as being tall—at least in physical stature. Yet she is a towering tree in terms of wisdom and talent. Here she is cracking us up on Easter Sunday while posing for a photo with my mom, Elsa.


Years ago, when we were first talking by phone about an art project for Bird Watcher's Digest, I found out that Julie was a musician, which made her vastly more fascinating to me. So I courted her with my best rawk song.

Now Julie plays in a band with me and several other special people: Craig and Wendy (Jessie and Kage not pictured, but equally special). We Rain Crows have fun always.

She plays the pennywhistle like a pro—sometimes morphing it into a jazz stick when the mood strikes her.

And she's not above throwing down some sweet dance moves, as she is doing here during a Hog Island seminar.

Crazy Turtle Lady is another nom de nature. As is Crazy Bat Lady.

In the fields of nature writing, painting, and sharing, she is outstanding. And out standing.

And sometimes she is also out lying in her fields of endeavor.

And she is the best person I've ever met at self-actualizing. She is rarely happier than when she is alone in her little kayak, floating among the birds and butterflies and turtles. Now if only she could bring Chet Baker along in the boat....

We love you, Jules! Happy birthday from all of us. We bask in the wonder of all you share with us, and consider ourselves so lucky to be a part of your world.

10 comments:

On July 24, 2012 at 12:20 PM Catbird said...

Beautiful, BOTB!

On July 24, 2012 at 12:35 PM Julie Zickefoose said...

I love you right back, B. This is the best present besides a baby box turtle coming home and an iPhone 4S and dinner out with you and Shoom!
xoxox
j

On July 24, 2012 at 2:08 PM DeniseinVA said...

A wonderful tribute, loved all the photos and a very happy birthday to Julie.

On July 24, 2012 at 3:07 PM cyberthrush said...

you forgot to mention blogger-and-wordsmith extraordinaire (but you probably just ran out of room)

On July 25, 2012 at 8:23 AM Julie Stone said...

I wanna be Julie Zickefoose when I grow up!

On July 27, 2012 at 11:04 AM Rondeau Ric said...

Happy birthday Julie.

On July 27, 2012 at 4:33 PM Anonymous said...

Of all the people I've never met in the world, and yet consider a friend, Julie is absolutely the CRAZY BEST! We adore her. Hope the birthday celebration was GREAT.

On August 12, 2012 at 9:04 AM Julie Zickefoose said...

Yeah so Bill where's my birthday song? Huh? Because I was waiting at 10 AM New York time and I didn't hear no song.

On June 30, 2018 at 6:14 AM Unknown said...

Aww! She is so cute! My Julie’s birthday was last month and she turned one. It’s a beagle and coincidently it was my grad party as well, so we booked one of the outdoor venues in NYC and celebrated the day. Anyways, it was superb coming across this post. She does so much of interesting things in life. I would want to be like her when I am her age.

On March 1, 2020 at 2:39 PM John Browney said...

make yourself a great birthday gift! travel across USA is probably one of the most exciting and greatest gifts , at least to my mind! follow here


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